Tag: Discernment

Master Class

None of us lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master. While we live we are responsible to the Lord, and when we die we die as his servants. Both in life and death we are the Lord’s. (Romans 14:7-8)

   A short reading for Morning Prayer began with these few words. They always stir my heart and provoke my thinking no matter how many times I see or hear them.
   Whether we agree with them or not is radically decisive about the course of our lives, the structure of our values, and all our expectations for the future.
   They are a brief statement of our essential identity. We’re not self-made, we’re not a mere byproduct of an act of love or passion, we’re not anything we may wish to be
   We are created—and even though we may yearn or feel free to be and do whatever we wish, this contradicts our essential structure and design. If that is how we try to live our lives, we don’t know who and what we are, and we are not realizing the fulness of our true potential.
   One way or another, we all, at least from time to time, are engaged in the search for meaning. for the purpose, direction, and destiny of our lives.
   The quest can be uncomfortable, frightening, or dismaying as we try to look ahead, depending on what we see or don’t see. But, we must be who and what we are, and we are limited in what we can do or achieve.
   It’s not necessarily a grim or sad story. The quest for meaning can lead us to begin to perceive our limitations not so much as personal failures or lack of success as part of our essence and design.
   It seems illogical that the complex reality of a living human person could be merely a result of a long-term process of gradual or abrupt random changes and mutations.

   Also, it seems logical that the effect must somehow have a cause that is at least equal to or greater than the effect itself.
   In other words, the quest for meaning can lead to something greater than ourselves and beyond our full understanding—as is the very universe itself.
   In our less religious age we recourse to sometimes trendy, but ultimately almost unintelligible words and concepts like, e.g., the Big Bang theory. In earlier ages unknown forces and powers were conceived of as the work of superior beings, divinities.
   In the Jewish-Christian-Muslim traditions, this gradually led to the realization and belief that this inevitably demanded an ultimate power, a supreme divinity.
   That’s what we have come to mean by God. Greater than anything or anyone other, more powerful than any other power, more understanding, compassionate, generous, merciful, and loving.
   And this is not merely a kind of philosophical theory or theological speculation. It has gradually emerged in the traditions and development of the world’s great religions. It’s shared human patrimony is not to be underestimated.
   When Paul wrote his letter to the Judeo-Christian community of imperial Rome, he used a good word to summarize all this quest for meaning and purpose, “Master”.
   Notice he didn’t say God is the Master of everyone, starting with the most difficult and demanding concept of all, “God”. He simply stated the obvious and logical to him, the common human experience: None of us lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master.
   And, this great truth has consequences!


9 May 2021

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

This is an expression that we may use to describe someone who is so deeply involved in the details of something that they lose sight of the overall, the big picture.
   The movie, “The Bridge on the River Kwai”, was a great example of this. British soldiers are in a WWII Japanese prison camp. For the sake of their physical health and overall morale, their commanding officer leads them in constructing a bridge over the nearby river, demanded by the Japanese camp commander.
   When the completed bridge is targeted for destruction by the British army, the prisoners’ commander, so deeply committed to the success of his project, blindly tries to impede the British action.
   Losing sight of the forest because of the trees is always a danger for anyone, especially responsible, thorough, and thoughtful people. One can get so absorbed in the details of some construction, task, investigation, or analysis that it’s easy to lose sight of the overall goal—or even impede it.
   “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” We shouldn’t get so immersed in what we are doing that we lose track of our overall goal. There’s only so much time, opportunity, and resources available to us.
Don’t spend so much time packing carefully that you miss the vacation flight!
   There is a high degree of specialization in the field of medical care. There can be doctors who are so highly skilled in some very specialized medical fields that they almost lose sight of overall threats to the health, wellbeing, and life obligations of their patient.
   This can happen in all fields, not just the medical. With all due respect, it seems to me that something similar sometimes happens in the religious field as well—to preachers, writers, theologians, biblical scholars, canonists, historians, and those with special ecclesiastical responsibilities.

   Generally in the Eastern churches, the cross as a symbol of victory is often a golden or even bejeweled emblem. In the Western church, it is usually the crucifix, the cross with the tortured body of Jesus affixed.
   During the Easter Triduum, we remember and celebrate in great detail—the passion narrative—the final few days and hours of Jesus’s life. Sometimes it seems that we’re so celebrating the details of the price he paid that we almost neglect why and for what purpose he paid the price.
   Jesus didn’t seek or want to suffer or to die. Remember his prayer in the agony of the garden. He only sought to do the Father’s will, no matter what the cost.
   Your goal and mine is not to be crucified, or to suffer, or to live a sacrificial life. Our goal is to live, to love, to serve, to celebrate and give thanks for the wonder of God’s works, and above all, as Jesus, to seek to do God’s will—no matter what, nor what the cost.
   To become so fascinated, to empathize so deeply with the details of the price he paid can—not necessarily but may—distract us from his overall purpose. Even in this, we can lose sight of the forest because of the trees!
   In our rapidly changing and divided and contesting world, we may become so comfortable, engaged, and defensive of certain concerns, values, customs, procedures, persons or institutions, that we may be in danger of losing sight of the overall goal or purpose that they once and may or may not still help us attain.
   The harder you work, the greater sacrifice you make, the more responsible you may be—beware of not seeing the forest!


25 April 2021

When the Hurlyburly’s Done

Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth opens with a brief scene where three witches, the Norns of Scandinavian mythology, allude to Macbeth’s future:

When the hurlyburly’s done.
When the battle’s lost and won.

   We each spend the whole course of lives with the hurlyburly, with the battle, with the ever-present, daily struggle to live and to live well.
   It is our duty, our doom, our fate. The Genesis story describes it as a kind of punishment for the first man (3:17-19):

Cursed is the ground because of you!
In toil you shall eat its yield
   all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
   and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
   you shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
   from which you were taken;
For you are dust,
   and to dust you shall return.

   Our busy lives are driven not only by our desire to conform them to the will of God but also out of a sense of responsibility for ourselves and others and for the world in which we live.
   When in the course of our lives we have done all that is humanly possible, have achieved all that we possibly can, at the end we have to shift gears.
   At the end, all is out of our control. We’re in unfamiliar territory. The rules have changed.
   We face the unknown, the final stage of our lives with a mixture of helplessness and confidence, blindness and insight, fear and trust, weakness and strength, resistance and acceptance, turmoil and peace.

   When the hurlyburly of our life is done, when for better or for worse our life’s battle is over, when whatever victory we have achieved is past, we are called to a final, total surrender. This abandonment to the mercy and love of God is the final challenge of our earthly life.
   But, till that end comes, we still have to work, bear burdens, struggle to do what is right, and patiently endure.
   A farmer may trust that God will bring growth and fruitfulness to the seed, but the farmer needs to work—to plow, prepare, plant, cultivate, and be vigilant through spring and summer till harvest.
   Dying is hard and challenging, not because we lack faith, hope, love, or trust in the love and mercy of God, but because we’re used to living “by the sweat of your brow”; we’re used to defining our lives by our doing, working, accomplishing, achieving.
   In the sometimes exaggerated tales of saints, they sometimes sound ethereal, childlike, and floating in a sort of never-never land. But, that’s not real life.
   We live with total confidence in God—but to live means to work, strive, sacrifice, love, enjoy, give thanks, aid, assist, achieve, create, and many other things.
   As Ecclesiastes would say, there is a time for living, and a time for dying. We are very used to and have much experience of the time for living, but we have no personal experience of the time for dying before that unique time comes.
   When that day comes, the paradox is our life’s battle, too, will be both lost and won. We’re called to fight the good fight of life to the very end, and then we’re called to surrender ourselves to God.


28 March 2021

True or False

Polydactylism is an anomaly in human beings and animals—i.e., extra fingers and/or toes.
   Suppose you were playing True or False, and the question was “Humans have five fingers, true or false?” The common sense, customary response would be “True”—but sometimes, rarely, they don’t. So the right answer must be “False”.
   Now, if the question was more nuanced, say, “Humans usually (or mostly) have five fingers, true or false?” the right answer would be “True”.
   But if the players of this game all lived on an isolated little island (never mind that “isolated” and “island” are both derived from the same root word) where everybody has six fingers . . . well, you get the idea.
   On a day to day basis, it’s hard to find real life “absolute” truths and/or “absolute” falsehoods.
   A similar challenge involves characterizing something as either “right” or “wrong”, or as “good” or “bad”.
   The problem is whether there is such a thing as an “absolute”—because an absolute means something 100%, without exception.
   An absolute is a projection, based on experience. In practice, one end of a range is an absolute—e.g., from 100% True to 100% False. You can be at any point on the range, but you’re never at either end point.
   None of us are ever 100% True or 100% False; 100% Right or 100% Wrong; 100% Good or 100% Bad—no creature, that is. (100% is either a theoretical abstract or we’re talking about God.)
   But just because no view, opinion, or decision is absolutely (100%) true or absolutely (100%) false, it doesn’t mean that all views, opinions, and decisions are of equal value or worth.
   We judge things—and even argue about things—on the basis of how close or how far away they are from the ideal (the absolute).

   A popular classification or rating criterion now-a-days has to do with liking. Someone tweets something, and then we learn about how many “Likes” it got in response. (We don’t get into whether it refers to liking a lot or only liking a little.)
   This is a measure of popularity at any given moment in time (presuming, of course, that everyone more or less understands the tweet, view, opinion or decision being classified in the same way.)
   An idea may be very popular, but this has little to do with it being true or false—or right or wrong, or good or bad.
   When you get down to it, there’s a high degree of relativity to every aspect of our lives. We may not be perfectly (100%) good, but we may be striving to be good. Our ideals are the carrot on the stick!
   We often “like” the unearthing of negative facts about people. And, since none of us are perfectly (100%) good or bad, smart or dumb, prudent or imprudent, selfless or selfish, there’s always something to accuse, criticize, unearth, or discredit about each of us—about every human person, no matter who!
   What’s really important is what are our absolutes, our ideals, what are our carrots on the stick in front of us.
   If we try to be true, right, or good and manage to be more often than not we may be on the way to becoming “saints”—e.g. exemplary people, outstanding in many ways, models to be imitated.
   On the other hand, if more often than not we’re false, wrong, bad, we also may be exemplary people, outstanding in many ways, but an entirely different kind of model!


14 March 2021

Cursing the Darkness

Better to light one candle
than to curse the darkness.

It seems, considering how we invest our time, energy, and attention, that we have become inordinately absorbed in cursing the darkness!
First, let’s be clear what we’re talking about. “Darkness” refers to the absence or lack of light; by extension and metaphorically it alludes to wicked or evil beings that inhabit or are associated with it.
Second, let’s be clear about the attention we give to darkness.
– Although we want light, we’re not being inundated by candle-lighters or overwhelmed by the light they’re shedding. But we do try to educate potential candle-lighters about the depth and extent and danger of the darkness.
– That’s what prompts us to condemn the darkness. We want to persuade people that, even in spite of certain advantages and satisfactions of the darkness, it’s not good. So, we try to heighten their awareness of the undesirable consequences of the darkness.
– But, to motivate cursing the darkness, we really have to reveal the darkness in its depth. We have to call attention to its vastness, its origin, and its seemingly rapid expansion. We have to dramatically illustrate its deceptive worth and value. We have to announce the dark dangers daily.
What happens! Often we end up becoming absorbed by the darkness and its effects, by the absence of light.
Look at the entertainment sector: audiences are thrilled by films that exceed one another in shockingly vivid depictions of death, destruction, and violence.
Look at the religious sector: church goers sometimes are titillated by exhortations to righteousness and virtue that dramatically describe the consequences of their absence—sins and their enormity.

Look at the political sector: citizens are ceaselessly informed about the scope and significance and failings of the “other”, so as to muster support for the “right” side.
If we’re often hearing and speaking of the darkness, its extent, and the achievements of darkness dwellers, we may not be doing a great job of spreading the light.
There are always spots of light amid the darkness, like stars in the night sky. Do we see them as spoilers of the darkness, or as harbingers of the beauty of the light?
In over-educating people about the achievements, pleasures and dangers of the darkness, we may be blinding them to the power and glory of the light.
To be a force for light, we need to be aware of the darkness, but not to curse and denounce it in such exquisite detail that in effect we become its promoters.
To be a force for light, don’t forget that the most important thing is to light and keep burning the candle of our lives—even one spot in the night can encourage others to shine their little light as well.
To be a force for light, we should learn from the current pandemic. One tiny virus so multiplies that it is interfering with human life on earth, causing more death than many a war, radically affecting and altering the behavior of almost everyone.
Your priority is to light your candle, which instantly dispels nearby darkness and can become a very contagious behavior—each candle-lighter encouraging another.
Remember Paul’s plea to the Ephesians: “…you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth…”


7 March 2021

The Martha Complex

“To be or not to be?” For Hamlet, this literally was a life or death question. Is life worth living? Why must I prolong the agony? What have I done to deserve this? What alternatives do I have?
For most of us in this ever busy, bustling world we live in, our question could well be “To do or not to do?” Why do I have to do so much? Why do some others get away with doing much less or so little? What’s this rat-race for anyway?
Usually from earliest childhood we’re used to being judged on performance:
– “Oh, you’re such a good baby! You ate all your dinner.”
– “Oh, what a good girl! Look how nice and neat your room is.”
– “Great job! You really cleaned up the yard.”
– “Hey, man, your home run won the game!”
– “Your thesis was outstanding. You’re going to graduate cum laude.”
– “You’re going to get a good raise this year. Your work was super.”
– “Congratulations! For outstanding service, you’re going to be promoted next month.”
In the U.S., usually when you meet a stranger, after a while a common question is, “What do you do?” Meaning, of course, what is your job?
We have become used to identifying ourselves by what we do. Often it’s our label: farmer, waiter, cop, preacher, painter, aid, teacher, doctor, nurse, and the like.
You can even pass the “do” test with a label like poet, so long as you can point to your poetry, preferably published.
Once upon a time college was associated with training in “liberal arts”; now it’s much more likely to be a matter of job training and preparation.
For better or worse, we live in a world that esteems doing and doers.

O Lord, my heart is not proud
Nor haughty my eyes.
I have not gone after things too great
Nor marvels beyond me.

Truly I have set my soul
In silence and peace.
As a child has rest in its mother’s arms
Even so my soul.

These verses from Psalm 131 are a good antidote to an overdose of “doing”.
Resting is not “doing”—it’s an abstention from doing. It’s just “being”.
“Being” allows basking in silence and in peace. It can be accompanied by joy and gladness. It can be far more contagious than any virus. It is the great liberation from the slavery of “doing”.
Thanks be to God for the state or stage of life when the demands of “doing” abate, when we no longer are being judged by achievements and successes, when we are retired or exempted from the requirements of doing and accomplishing.
It is a great time for “being”, especially if we rarely found much time for it before.
Poor Hamlet, so wrapped in the tragedies of his life, in what he had to do to oppose and reveal them, in the requirements of honor and vengeance, and in his relative inability successfully to “do” all that overwhelmed him, that he seemed to see “being” as no more than “not doing”.
Martha complained of Mary because she wasn’t “doing” enough. Jesus rebuked her, saying that “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
If you’ve got to “do”, do like her.


28 February 2021

Changing the Name or Renaming the Change?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
In Shakespeare’s play, these words of Juliet referred to the challenge of her love for Romeo even though he bore the name and was a member of an enemy family.
In many countries, the practice has been that upon her wedding the wife changes her family name to that of her husband—and in some places even moves into the dwelling place of her husband’s family. But, name notwithstanding, she’s still the same person.
When it comes to politics, there’s a lot of changing names for the same old same old, although once in a while there really is a real change—whether it gets a new name or not!
And, what do names in politics mean, after all? Does Republican mean a believer in a republic or just a partisan supporter of a particular group? Does Democrat mean a believer in a democracy or just a partisan supporter of a particular group?
Are Liberals advocates of freedom? Are Communists crusaders for the community? Are Radicals trying to get back to the root of things? Are Reactionaries fond of redoing some of the things that worked before? Are Conservatives trying to conserve the best of the past?
In education, when someone has completed a certain amount of studies, he or she gets a new title—which isn’t always used. We don’t call a college graduate “Bachelor” nor someone with a few more post-graduate years of schooling “Master”, but frequently we do refer to someone with even more studies and skills as “Doctor”.
In religion, we call some celibates “Father” even though they’re not one; we call others “Pastor” even without a flock of sheep; and “Bishops” aren’t always good overseers (that’s what the title means). And, why do Catholics call some of them “Monsignor” (meaning “My Lord”)? Good Lord, none of them are Lords, even if some act like they are!

“Clothes make the man.” We often confuse being well-dressed with being successful or wealthy or important—but there’s no necessary connection with any of them
The reverse is true, too. The Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military is the president, but he has no impressive uniform at all. Modern royalty only uses distinctive clothing for special and ceremonial occasions. Most people with academic degrees rarely wear the robes after receiving the degree.
The point is that changing a name, title, form of address, or dress doesn’t necessarily mean a changed person or position or place—although sometimes it really does!
You can’t judge a book by its cover. A new job title doesn’t necessarily mean a raise in salary. Consultation is not the same as agreement. Being legally married doesn’t guarantee love—and vice-versa! “I see” doesn’t necessarily mean I really do.
A song from My Fair Lady is apropos:

Words. Words. Words.
   I’m so sick of words.
   I get words all day through,
   First from him, now from you.
   Is that all you blighters can do?
Don’t talk of stars,
   Burning above!
   If you’re in love;
   Show me!
Tell me no dreams
   Filled with desire!
   If you’re on fire,
   Show me! . . .

People change, for better or worse. Beware of not recognizing the change because the name’s the same!


14 February 2021

Trying to Do the Right Thing

confuse  1. to mix up; jumble together; put into disorder  2. to mix up mentally; specifically, a) to bewilder; perplex  b) to embarrass; disconcert: abash  c) to fail to distinguish between; mistake the identity of

The last part of the definition is an important danger signal. It’s about something we often tend to do, and rarely recognize—although lots of folk sayings should warn us:

– separate the wheat from the chaff
– two wrongs don’t make a right
– don’t be misled by appearances
– don’t judge a book by its cover
– action speak louder than words
– all that glitters is not gold
– don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater

When it comes to right and wrong, things can get confusing. We may fail to distinguish between and mistake the identity of what is of God and what is merely human custom.
I learned a little lesson about that a long time ago, when as a young priest I was sent to Puerto Rico to learn to speak Spanish and to understand the challenges of intercultural communication.
There are many differences between North American Catholicism and Latin American Catholicism—different priorities, different popular customs, different cultural values—but the same fundamental faith.
Here’s a very simple example:
When I heard the confessions of children in New York, it was likely that their main sin would be, “I disobeyed” my mother, father, teacher, etc. But I found that in Puerto Rico the main sin of children was more likely to be, “I disrespected” my mother, father, teacher, and the like.

Are they both sins? Is it ever right to disobey or is it always wrong? Is it ever right to disrespect or is it always wrong? Which “sin” appears to be worse? Which is worse? Like many things, the more you think about them, the more confusing they can become.
Take a far more complicated example, a very contentious matter in the United States both politically and religiously, about being “pro-life” or “pro-choice”.
At first it seems simple enough: we should be both! If “pro-life” refers to respecting human life from conception to death, we certainly should try to do that. If “pro-choice” refers to respecting each person’s God-given right to make his or her own free choices, we certainly should try to do that.
But . . .
What to do, if your free choices limit or block mine or someone else’s?
Is it legitimate for me to take the life of another if it’s the only way to defend myself or to defend another or to defend my home, my family, my land, my country?
What about turning the other cheek or Jesus’ praying, as he accepted being crucified, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”?
If I’m a doctor, must I do every possible thing to heal and prolong life even though it seems clear that my patient is dying?
Is there such a thing as a “just war”? And if so, when? Who decides? If I’m raped, must I bear the child? If I’m dying and in great pain, may I decide not to be resuscitated?
What about the execution of criminals?
O to have Solomon’s wisdom! But even he sometimes confused things and made mistakes. Hopefully he learned from them!


7 February 2021

Just Imagine

Imagination usually refers to the ability to create mental images of things that do not yet exist and hypothetical future scenarios that could exist. It’s a vital ingredient of creativity.
Creative imagination is a necessary component of every field of human endeavor and the inspiration for invention and innovation.
What would science, art, philosophy or theology be like without it? Without it, persons, families, societies, and institutions may decline, wither, and lose vitality.
Imagination is fundamentally a good, although we can imagine good things or bad things, good scenarios or bad ones. Imagination can be at the root of great innovations and of great destructions.
But, oh how sad and confining it is not to have a lively imagination, not to be creative nor innovative, not to be inspiring or ground-breaking.
And, in spite of every effort to do so, you can’t ban or control imagination. Nothing is unthinkable, even though many choices, activities, and deeds may be turn out to be inappropriate, regrettable, harmful, or destructive.
In many sectors of life, there have been failed attempts to control information, beliefs, interactions, freedoms, and creativity—they’re often bad and ultimately unsuccessful.
Let’s be a little imaginative in some areas of religious practice . . . and remembering that just because a thing never happened doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t.
– Married clergy: Can priests or ministers be married? Of course? From the beginning of Christianity, married men have been ordained priests in the Eastern churches, both Catholics and Orthodox, There certainly have been married men with leading ministerial roles in many Christian churches for many years.

– Female clergy: Can women be priests? In some branches of Christianity the practice is already well established. Can women be bishops? (Same answer.) Imagine a woman as a cardinal. Why not? A cardinal is a papal elector. Could a woman be pope?
– Sabbath observance: Christians are church-centered in their worship. Observant Jews are home and family centered. Can Christian observance be more like the Jewish? Imagine the head of a family leading a weekly eucharistic (Thanksgiving) ceremony at home.
– Marriage: Marriage involves a mutual choice and bonding of persons and traditionally has to do with having and raising a family. If the choice and bonding don’t exist anymore, does the marriage exist? What does it take for the civil authority to acknowledge that it is over? What should it take for the ecclesiastical authority to do the same? Should they?
– Human sexuality: Is it or should it be restricted to marriage? Is it by nature or should it be limited to acts of mating or procreation? Should sexual bonding be allowed to persons of the same sex? What about same-sex marriage?
– Respect life: Do we respect a right to life of the baby in the womb? When can a war be just? What about assisting suicide? Capital punishment? How do we strike a balance in a divided and pluralistic society? Can morality be legislated?
– Justice issues: Do I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all? Am I or should I be concerned about legislative oversight and support for these values?
Just imagine a little what could, should, shouldn’t, or might happen.


24 January 2021

Thomases Can Be Good and Tough

They often call St. Thomas the doubting apostle, but do you realize how daunting, not doubting, he and many of his namesakes have been?
Thomas the apostle is quoted only four times in the New Testament and all four times in the Gospel according to John.
– When Jesus heard the news of the death of Lazarus, he was across the Jordan, After two days, he decided to risk returning to Judea. The disciples counseled him not to go, reminding him that many wanted to stone him to death. It was Thomas who bravely, maybe brashly, rebuked his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.”
– During the last supper, Jesus spoke to the apostles about his “going away” and their ultimately rejoining him. It was Thomas who bluntly questioned him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”
– After Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to the apostles in Thomas’s absence, Thomas boldly demanded proof of what they excitedly were telling him: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
– A week later, when he saw the risen Jesus with his own eyes, he attested, “My Lord and my God!”
It was this same Thomas who proclaimed the Good News to the east, who went to the scattered Jewish trading posts in southern India and, as Paul in the West, preached first to his fellow Jews and then to the local folk, implanting Christianity in India.
Doubting is a mischaracterization of Thomas the apostle—a better description would be fair-minded, logical, reasonable, courageous, dedicated, and dauntless!
Many a holy namesake of his had similar qualities, like Thomas Becket, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas à Kempis, Thomas More, and many more.

Two of them were the subjects of beautiful and very moving films, “Becket” and “A Man for All Seasons”.
Thomas Becket (1118-1170), the unlikely saint (as are most such), although ordained a deacon in his youth, was a rogue and great friend of King Henry II of England.
Henry, needing more support and less interference from the churchmen of his day, decided on a master-stroke—to make his bosom buddy both Chancellor of England and head of the English Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Thomas demurred, warning the king against it, but, once given the role and responsibility of archbishop, he carried them out unreservedly, ultimate being first exiled and then martyred because of it.
Another fair-minded, logical, reasonable, courageous, dedicated, and dauntless Thomas!
The relationship of Thomas More (1478-1535) and King Henry VIII had some similarities. King Henry wanted a male heir, but was childless. He needed to divorce his wife and seek another, but, impeded by the church discipline and authorities, he broke with Rome, declaring himself supreme head of the English Church.
His intended master-stroke was to make his modest, respected, lawyer friend Thomas More the Chancellor of England, counting on Thomas’s full support for his decisions.
However Thomas More was fair-minded, logical, reasonable, courageous, dedicated, and dauntless. He couldn’t back his royal friend and was beheaded for it, for his integrity and overwhelming honesty.
Maybe you’re not a Thomas, but qualities like these could help make you a saint, too!


10 January 2021